Lost Liverpool (2)

Colin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:41:32 +0000

Following on from yesterday, my next choice is a building that has got progressively worse each time it has been rebuilt:
8 Exchange Buildings. The smaller photograph (taken in 1860) is a view of James Wyatt’s elegant building (1803-9), in perfect sympathy with the Town Hall (for which he was partly responsible). Tastes changed and, in the 1860s, the building was replaced by one in the more flamboyant (and less sympathetic) Gothic style (top photograph, 1886). Needless to say, the modernists had their way in the 1930s – replacing it with the current vaguely neo-classical building.
9 Duke’s Dock Warehouse. Built in 1811, this was one of Liverpool’s most grievous losses according to Quentin Hughes – who gave it considerable space in his seminal book Seaport. A magnificent early six-storey warehouse, it was demolished for no benefit by an insensitive Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.
10 Cotton Exchange. Another example of trying to modernise unsympathetically. The original building (1905/6 by Matear and Simpson) was a grand Edwardian baroque statement of the importance of the cotton trade. Its replacement is unintentionally a weak nod to the post-war decline in confidence.
11 Canada Dock hydraulic tower (1858). Perhaps Jesse Hartley’s weirdest building – a medieval castle on the banks of the Mersey.

Streets of Liverpool » Exchange Buildings

Lost Liverpool (2)